So, ftg?
Still feel like trying to “reclaim” the Tennessee River?
To solve your improvident State’s water shortage?
We’ll be happy to divert it into downtown Atlanta…oh…Wednesday, noonish.
That is, if y’all still claim it belongs to Georgia. <EVIL LEER>
How sad. 
You are exactly right. A lot of people don’t realize the power of a few feet of water … shin-deep water can knock a grown person off their feet, flowing at 2 feet per second.
I currently live in Marietta (for 26 more hours, then I move to DOWNTOWN ATLANTA! WOOO!) and I didn’t think this rain was ever going to end. The sun today was a nice break…so of course, I spent it all inside looking for pictures of the flooding. I didn’t get to see Spaghetti Junction underwater or any of the interesting stuff, just flooded parking lots. Has anyone found a good photographic journal of the floods?
Not quite right. Allatoona is a much smaller lake operating in a watershed that is about the same size as Lanier’s. To say that Lanier has a large watershed relative to its size is incorrect.
Now see what happens when everybody prays for rain at once? You need to stop confusing all the different gods and have a few designated pray-ers … then you wont get into this kind of mess…
Honestly, be safe.
Even worse than that, once the water is deeper than the bottom of the car, you have MUCH force on the whole side of the car, usually pushing the car sideways off the road into deeper water. ALSO, once the water is deeper than the bottom of the car, it starts to FLOAT the car, causing the tire to loose traction at the very time you need it most.
Man, I’m glad you Georgia dopers are OK. I’ve been worried about you all.
Someone is calling it a 500 year flood but the data in the article does not seem to support it so much.
No more rain of note since Monday, but there’s a flash flood watch for today. I’ll be trying to button down today all the little leaks that popped up. Hoping for no wind. Wind would be bad.
There’s all sorts of quite noticable things around still. A huge backup at one intersection for large chunks of time since a nearby road is closed and everyone has to pass thru this one bottleneck now. I went to a recycling place that’s near a creek that flooded. A nearby building is being gutted since it was soaked chest high. (A towing company: karma?) The recycler’s building was higher and the water had only been a bit more than knee high. There was a guy out front with a hose washing off office stuff. Recycle, reduce, re-use, rinse? Lot’s of stuff like that.
Coming home last night, I got to a RR crossing just as a train showed up. A very slow moving train. The slowest moving train I’ve ever seen. The tracks run next to a creek so probably a speed limit due to bed damage. I was boxed in. Finally the car in front of me rolled forward so I was able to turn around and take a road that has an overpass over the tracks. But then ran into other flood issues and had to do yet another detour. It’s not “interesting” anymore.
ftg (and other Georgia dopers), I hope that things can get back to normal soon. Sometimes it takes a while; I know exactly what you mean about it not being interesting after a point. It gets to be a drag, and it wears on you each day that you have to deal with it. You have my sympathies.
Re: The 500-year (0.2%-chance) flood: the USGS is the authority on that, IMO. If they say it reached 0.2%-chance magnitude, then I believe 'em.
If you are referring to this:
What they are trying to say is that the Chattahoochee reached 0.2%-chance levels, but Peachtree Creek did not. It sounds as though the Chattahoochee River watershed recieved the rainfall necessary to create large flows, but that of Peachtree Creek didn’t.
Where are you in Atlanta, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m in Buckhead, and live next to the intersection that is supposed to be the highest point in the city of Atlanta. Even so, plenty of houses around here flooded pretty badly. The good news is that the flood waters receded very, very quickly in this part of town.
I just built my house, and was glad to see that the below ground basement stayed dry as a bone. My next door neighbor wasn’t as lucky. He still has my dehumidifier & box fan going around the clock 4 days later. I’m putting my waterproofing company on the family Christmas Card list.
Get the rafts ready, thunderstorms are foreacst again this weekend.
I don’t think those “hundred-year flood” designations are reliable anymore (as a result of global climate change, maybe?). My parents live on a creek in eastern Ohio and had two “hundred-year floods” just eight years apart.
It begins again: .39" in the last hour or so. And the main band of storms isn’t here yet. (Oops, just heard some thunder. Maybe time to shut down.) But at least once this is over things might start drying out.
The humidity is astonishing. Working outside in 72 degree weather is a bear. You can feel the moisture seeping out of everything.
Here’s a bunch of aerial shots. Every wanted to see a half-submerged rollercoaster? One of the busiest freeways in the SE closed down?
Mrs. FtG discovered a detour around yet another washed out bridge this am. Wasn’t on the list from earlier in the week. I guess they just got tired of listing everything.
OMG, ftg!!!
Wife went to pick up meds. She’s out in this mess.Don’t wanna call her on the cell, cause she needs to concentrate on driving. Worried.
Q
Damn! Sadly, I read a story recently about a 40-ish year old mother that drowned inside her minivan. Apparently she was returning home from Sam’s Club after working the 3rd shift at around 5:00am and was something like a third of a mile from home when she went through some high water from a flooded nearby creek that swept her vehicle into a school and she was trapped inside. She was able to call 911 and responders were there in time to save her, but they couldn’t get to her due to the current. She drowned while still on the line with the 911 call center, which was reassuring her all the while.
How terrible.
It’s a term from statistics. I agree with you that the moniker “100-year flood” is misleading. It is more aptly called the “1%-chance flood”. As Marienee noted upthread, it is that flood which has a 1% chance of being equalled or exceeded in a given year. Theoretically you could have that happen more than once in a given year.
A helpful way to think about it: we expect every single blade of grass within a watershed to experience that amount of rainfall *at least once *in a given 100-year period.
Note that these rainfall amounts (or flows if you’re talking about stream gage records) are calculated from empirical (measured) data. If the gages you’re using have a short period of record, then your estimate of the 1%-chance flood/rainfall is probably going to be off. The longer the period of record, the better the estimate.
Oh no!
I had not heard of this till now. God I feel like hell!
Here, in the middle of all this tragedy I am asking for help.
I, who is nowhere near as devastated as this lady’s kids and family must be!!!
If Wayne and Garth’s phrase ever meant anything at any time, it is approriate here:
“I’m not worthy”
Bill
We got 1.46" total yesterday. So not too bad. The worst of the storms seemed to have died down quite a bit on radar before they reached us.
The air is different this morning. Noticably drier. More dry, cool air and sunshine on the way.
I wonder how long the cleanup will take. Sheesh, there are still windows out all over downtown from the tornado of March 2008.
It just keeps going and going.
Over the last 3 weeks hardly any truly dry days. Everything is so musty. Not hot enough for AC, not cold enough to run the furnace much. Things are just getting uggy.
Various bursts of rain going from .3 to 1.6".
And then it’s really started again. 3.2"* on Monday. .9" today. Everything is so bleeping wet. And it’s just going to keep going like this. All during the dry time of the year with no tropical storms.
A nearby bridge that was out from the big storms was being worked on Thurs. by a big crew. Wonder if they got it fixed and will it stay fixed.
Lake Lanier reached full summer pool level today for the first time in years. That chart is amazing. But still a ways from flood pool.
*Amounts are quite approximate. My less than one year old Oregon Sci. rain gauge is out so I’m using my garden rain gauge. Water got into the “sealed” battery compartment, possbly thru the antenna connector. I guess they didn’t design it to handle 2+" an hour of rain.